DUROVILLE: Magistrate expresses confidence state money issue will be resolved

The federal magistrate judge overseeing the shutdown of a broken-down and dangerous mobile home park near Thermal that houses migrant farmworker families said Wednesday, June 27, that he is convinced California will favorably resolve a redevelopment money issue holding up its closure.

On hold for review is $12 million to purchase 181 mobile homes in nearby Mountain View Estates, a new development nearby. Making those homes available to Duroville residents was part of the plan to close it. The government has spent three years trying to shut it down under a court directive.

With the dissolution of redevelopment agencies statewide, California officials are taking another look at whether ongoing projects, such as the Mountain View program, meet criteria to keep the funds.

The California Finance Department initially decided the money should revert to the state. Riverside County, which obtained the funds, has appealed.

Word of the delay has caused new anxiety for the park’s residents, and U.S. Magistrate Judge David Bristow visited them for three hours on Monday, June 25, to answer their questions and reassure them that the park will close, said Tom Flynn, the federal receiver overseeing the former Desert Mobile Home Park.

Sister Gabi Williams of the Diocese of San Bernardino's Office of Social Concerns said about 100 residents attended the meeting. “There is such uncertainty right now. The judge really did a fabulous job of clearing things up,” she said. Williams works with low-income Coachella Valley residents.

Duroville has been beset for years with sewage leaks, out-of-code electrical systems, fire hazards and other problems that have made it dangerous for residents.

About 1,500 people live there, but the population grows and contracts with harvest seasons in the Coachella Valley and throughout California. Many residents leave to work in the Central Valley during the summer, then return. Closing the park is a federal issue because Duroville lies on the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Reservation, under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Bristow did not himself disclose the visit during a morning status conference in Riverside Federal Court, but said several times during the session that he believed the redevelopment money delay was temporary.

“As far as the court is concerned, this project is going forward,” Bristow said at one point. ”That is not predicated solely on the court’s optimistic nature. It is predicated on state law.”

Bristow said he believed the Department of Finance's review did not initially appreciate or understand the gravity of the Duroville relocation program, and that additional information would show “this isn’t simply a purchase of mobile homes on a whim. … It is the final phase of a very valuable program.”

He said he believed the state “will see the worth and value of the program, consistent with its legal directive.”

Bristow said the county-state dispute over the money is beyond the scope of his court’s control.

During the hearing, Riverside County principal deputy county counsel Anita C. Willis said she was told the state had put the Duroville matter “up to a high level of review,” but also told the judge, “I have no idea what that means. … We keep following up with them, because they don’t follow up with us.”

She said there also was hope that a rider on an Assembly bill addressing redevelopment fund issues will help Duroville.

“It includes language that would allow the use of housing bond proceeds for the purpose for which the bonds were allocated, which would include this project,” she said. The end of redevelopment had put the use of those funds in question, she explained outside court.

There is pressure from other sources. San Bernardino Diocese Bishop Gerald R. Barnes on June 7 wrote Gov. Jerry Brown “to appeal to you to do whatever is in your power so that the residents of (Duroville) will be able to relocate.”

In his letter, Barnes acknowledged Brown’s challenges in negotiating the state’s fiscal budget. “It is in this difficult atmosphere that I put before you a request to bring some measure of justice to the poorest of the poor, the farmworkers in our Coachella Valley,” Barnes wrote.

In other action, Bristow said he would step in if stakeholders did not settle a separate issue delaying another key element to opening Mountain View, the construction of a sewer line.

Construction stopped five weeks ago after the sewer line entered reservation land and issues were raised about easement and access to the line.

He gave all the parties until July 11 to report their progress. If there is no agreement they will be called to a mandatory settlement conference the next week. Bristow said he would not hesitate to make an order regarding the completion of the line if the issues are not solved.

“I want to make it clear. Duroville cannot close until that sewer line is installed. That sewer line is going to be installed,” Bristow told the attorneys representing several involved parties.

The judge said the delays may actually be helpful for residents, many of whom were concerned that the latest move-out date had been pushed to mid-summer, when many planned to be gone for harvesting. Now, he said, the delay of at least two months would mean residents will be back by then.